Taking the infrastructural turn in the social sciences, geography, and geographical migration studies as a starting point and based on the observation that migration as a socio-spatial phenomenon is closely linked to infrastructure, this issue addresses the nexus of migration and infrastructure. Conceptualizations of infrastructures that were previously understood as distinct are brought together in a three-fold focus and made fruitful for the investigation of migration. (1) Infrastructures serve as institutional infrastructures to structure and organize migration; technical infrastructures are used to monitor and control migration. Infrastructures enable, impede, and thus prevent migration, and the investigation of infrastructures for guiding and/or preventing migration sheds light on the dynamics of power and the negotiation of rights in the nexus of infrastructures and migration. (2) Infrastructures are relevant as (socio-)material structures, such as camps, arrival centres, or urban infrastructures, which are discussed as arrival infrastructures. They mobilize and immobilize in equal measure and refer to the tension between state power and the individual agency of migrants. (3) People themselves are effective as infrastructures, for example where material/technical infrastructures are missing, and in the sense of the people as infrastructures perspective, they can create a minimum of stability, reliability, or security through the exchange and sharing of resources.

For the last 10 years, there has been an intense debate on the effects of climate change and on societal adaptation in social sciences extending disciplinary boundaries as well as diverse dimensions of social life, economic systems, and governance. At the beginning of the 2020s, the majority of climate change adaptation research is financed by public authorities embedding an explicitly output-driven application focus in project design. Such projects typically aim at developing concrete, mostly technology-driven solutions and best practices for selected regions or sectors. As a result of such scientific pragmatism, corresponding theorizations of the socially and politically contextualized design and implementation of adaptation research as well as its societal effects are either underrepresented or entirely non-existent. After more than 10 years of social science research on climate change adaptation, it is necessary to identify and update key research opportunities for the social sciences, in addition to questions arising from structural uncertainties and knowledge gaps with regard to the manifestations of climate change. Not least due to dynamic activity in the area of (urban) planning and implementing climate change adaptation, this theme issue explores opportunities of future socio-theoretical research in this field and its relevance.

Taking the infrastructural turn in the social sciences, geography, and geographical migration studies as a starting point and based on the observation that migration as a socio-spatial phenomenon is closely linked to infrastructure, this issue addresses the nexus of migration and infrastructure. Conceptualizations of infrastructures that were previously understood as distinct are brought together in a three-fold focus and made fruitful for the investigation of migration. (1) Infrastructures serve as institutional infrastructures to structure and organize migration; technical infrastructures are used to monitor and control migration. Infrastructures enable, impede, and thus prevent migration, and the investigation of infrastructures for guiding and/or preventing migration sheds light on the dynamics of power and the negotiation of rights in the nexus of infrastructures and migration. (2) Infrastructures are relevant as (socio-)material structures, such as camps, arrival centres, or urban infrastructures, which are discussed as arrival infrastructures. They mobilize and immobilize in equal measure and refer to the tension between state power and the individual agency of migrants. (3) People themselves are effective as infrastructures, for example where material/technical infrastructures are missing, and in the sense of the people as infrastructures perspective, they can create a minimum of stability, reliability, or security through the exchange and sharing of resources.

For the last 10 years, there has been an intense debate on the effects of climate change and on societal adaptation in social sciences extending disciplinary boundaries as well as diverse dimensions of social life, economic systems, and governance. At the beginning of the 2020s, the majority of climate change adaptation research is financed by public authorities embedding an explicitly output-driven application focus in project design. Such projects typically aim at developing concrete, mostly technology-driven solutions and best practices for selected regions or sectors. As a result of such scientific pragmatism, corresponding theorizations of the socially and politically contextualized design and implementation of adaptation research as well as its societal effects are either underrepresented or entirely non-existent. After more than 10 years of social science research on climate change adaptation, it is necessary to identify and update key research opportunities for the social sciences, in addition to questions arising from structural uncertainties and knowledge gaps with regard to the manifestations of climate change. Not least due to dynamic activity in the area of (urban) planning and implementing climate change adaptation, this theme issue explores opportunities of future socio-theoretical research in this field and its relevance.